Day 35: Does it always rain in New Mexico?

Friday July 23

Horse Springs Bible Church to Wild camp past Beaverhead work station

59.8 miles, 2043 ft climbed, 2336.5 cumulative miles

NOTE: Sarah’s phone had a meltdown and she lost all photos taken on the trip so that is why there aren’t any photos of Irena in the next few days of posts. Sad face.

The earth sucked up the apocalyptic rain from yesterday. Looking out our Sunday school window, we couldn’t see any puddles. We were still counting our blessings for this warm and dry shelter we found in the storm. We left a note with our donation and cleaned up as if we were never there. 

We were pleasantly surprised by the reasonable riding conditions. Shortly after departing, we came upon “GDMBR water” put out by a rancher. Two large bins, one filled with milk jugs full of water and the other full of carefully packaged treats and a guest book. It was such a welcome surprise!

After some more climbing through a Ponderosa forest, we got into some sticky mud which required us to clean off tires and our drive trains. From then on we were cautious to not ride through mud as it may be surprisingly deep and sticky. We both learned this separately trying walk around some mud and completely submerging one foot. 

Many miles of the road were washed out in the storm - not sure if yesterday’s or if this is really how bad the road normally is. Quite the change from the start of the day. The green hills in the distance were beautiful under the blue sky with big puffy clouds. This is still cattle ranching country and we passed one ranch after another. We enjoyed watching about ten horses run through a field once we biked through a canyon on a road lined by white poppies. 

The sky was threatening us for several miles now with dark clouds and thunder. Yesterday’s storm fresh in our minds, we hustled to the Beaverhead Work Station. We knew it had water and hoped that it could also provide temporary shelter. It did! We sat next to each other under the roof overhang in front of the fire station big doors, watching the rain and contemplating our next move. 

We agreed that finding a camp spot soon and setting up our shelter was a priority rather than getting in the miles that we planned. When the rain eased off, we pedaled another couple miles and found a lovely spot among the Ponderosas. A break in the rain let us set up the tents quickly, cooked dinner in our vestibules and were tucked in our tents before the real rain started again. And it rained! 

Published July 25, 2021